Solomon Hakes, b. 1688, ?, in England. The place of his birth was most probably County Devon. The English families believe that, to have been, where both the names Hake and Hakes originated, and where both families were first known by their armorial bearings. He was in Westerly, Rhode Island, in April, 1709, and in the town meeting of that month was propounded to be received a freeman. At the meeting in May following the committee of inquiry made a favorable report, and thereupon he was voted a freeman and was allotted 100 acres of the vacant land, the same as the other freemen. He removed to Stonington, Conn., the first of January, 1710, and the town meeting of Stonington, in that month, prescribed and recorded an ear mark for his cattle. The same ear mark the town meeting afterwards continued to his son George, June 28, 1754, and grandsons, Jesse, 1793, and Elihu, 1807. m. Anna Billings, {b. Oct., 1681,) daughter of Ebenezer and Anna (Comstock) Billings, of Stonington, Jan. 16, 1718. Married by Rev'd James Noyes. The burning of the county records at New London has rendered it impossible to learn much that would be highly interesting as regards both him and his sons. From the amount of his early purchases of real estate we may conclude that he was a young emigrant of liberal means for that period. He was a man of prominence in New London county, and his appointments to places of trust by the court mark him as a man of more than usual education for that period. Although alive in 1750, he was quite certainly dead before the struggle for independence. He would have been ninety years old in 1776. Therefore we can only speculate as to what stand he would have taken (if living) in that contest. Even in his day we may fancy the revolutionary ferment brewing, which later, put one of his sons and seven grandsons in the army for independence. The precise date of his death, 1753 ?, or of his wife, has not been found, but they were both buried about one mile northwesterly from the village of North Stonington, in a large old burying ground, the place known formerly as Milltown. occ. farmer.
